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When viewing the DVR PlayList on the nomad app, I noticed that some recordings are missing. I verified that the series/episodes are still on the original DVR and also checked that the shows appear on the PlayList of a remote DVR. I cannot find anything in common with the missing shows, such as recorded after a certain time.

In this case, the missing shows are three whole folders of episodes of three shows and two single episodes of other shows (of which I only had those single episodes recorded).

Issue: nomad App CrashLoaded up the application today and when it got to "Loading your content" the app just shut down. I had to reload it.

Issue: Times Listed in 24 Hr Format IncorrectOkay, this not a real issue per se. I have my iPhone set to display time in 24 Hr format. This is displaying the times partially in 24 hr format and partially in AM/PM format. For example, something that is recorded at 8am is displaying as "8:00a", when it should just be "8:00". Something recorded at 10pm is displaying as "22:00p" instead of just "22:00".

Thought I'd throw out some feature requests as I've started to use the Nomad recently... I believe most of these features can be applied to the PC and the iOS version of the app.

1. When in Settings and viewing the Auto-Download Series List, allow the ability to sort it. Currently, it is sorted in the order that they were created, I'd like to be able to sort it alphabetically.

2. The ability to set up Auto-Downloads for shows that have no recordings on the DVR. Basically, it would be nice to be able to select shows that I have an SL for, but do not currently have a saved episode on my DVR. This could be because the season hasn't started up yet, but I want it to start downloading episodes as soon as the season starts.

3. An easier way to start up the app in off-line mode. I was having some issues the other day and it wouldn't see the nomad.. It was stuck searching for it for a few minutes before it offered me to start up in off-line mode. There was no way for me to cancel the searching phase and skip right to off-line mode.

4. An easier way to see the amount of space available. I don't see why you could not have a space meter available all the time on the main screen of the app.

5. The ability to delete shows off of the nomad itself. That would allow better management of space and allow you to remove recent shows that you no longer need on there while leaving older shows on the nomad.

6. The ability to see what shows are on the nomad from a different device. For example, if I set up my PC to download a series and then go to my iPad, there is no indication that series is already on the nomad.

7. The ability to set up a show/series to transcode to the nomad, but not download to a device. As on an iPad there is really limited space, I'd like to set up a lot of series to transcode, but not download. That way I have my pick as to what I want to take with me without having to wait for the show to transcode and then download. It would just need to download.

8. The ability to sort the DVR PlayList window. With 3 DVRs and many shows, the list appears to be all jumbled together. I really don't have a need to filter by show type, but an easy way to filter by DVR (and not needing to go into settings to turn one off) would be nice as well as a way to sort by Recorded Date or Alphabetically.

9. The PC app needs to pick up on external memory quicker. I removed 2 4GB thumb drives and the System Settings showed that immediately. I plugged in an external drive and it took almost 5 minutes before it popped up that the device was there.

10. A way to limit the number of episodes that download to the nomad or a device, similar to the way you can limit a SL to only record a certain number of episodes. Although, this would not be an issue if you can just tell the nomad to transcode shows and not download them. The issue I have here is that I record kid's shows only will have 5 at most at a time on the DVR. When it transcodes and downloads to the PC, over the course of a month, that will end up being a heck of a lot of episodes for ones that show multiple times a day. While the nomad will only have the most recent 5 on there, the PC (or other device) will hold onto all the episodes for a month. It would be nice to set a limitation on the number of episodes that actually get downloaded.

- Merg

Continued...

11. Allow a way to mark for deletion. Due to not being able to limit the number of downloads of a show, I currently had 16 episodes of Phineas& Ferb on my PC. I wanted to reduce it down to 5, but that means I had to manually select each episode and then confirm deleting it. That is a real pain.

12. When selecting to delete an episode, it only provides a generic confirmation. The confirmation should include the show name and the episode title. Also, at the end of the confirmation, there is always what seems to be an error code listed "8-45-0". I'm not really sure why that is there.

I have an iPad3, iPhone3GS and a Macbook Pro 2011: I've given up on the iPad and iPhone as viable platforms for Nomad content, the Nomad app won't download in the background and it's ridiculous to expect someone to have the time to keep the Nomad app open in the foreground whilst downloading shows.

Has any thought been given to combining a native iPad version into the DirecTV Anywhere app? Might help with up-selling Nomads and getting a larger user base out there....

You don't have to have the iPad/iPhone client open for the entire process. You can queue up many programs, let them transcode overnight and then it's a few minutes a program to transfer them to the iPad/iPhone. You can even watch a program while the others transfer - or go take a shower.

Spending to stimulate the economy as fast as the credit cards will allow!

it's weird, because that's how it works on my mbp (vmware fusion) - but I've had nothing but problems with both the iPhone (which almost certainly a storage space available issue) and the iPad (which may be the same issue) - I'll give the iPad another shot

it's weird, because that's how it works on my mbp (vmware fusion) - but I've had nothing but problems with both the iPhone (which almost certainly a storage space available issue) and the iPad (which may be the same issue) - I'll give the iPad another shot

You can confirm the amount of space available on your iDevices by clicking on Summary in iTunes..

You don't have to have the iPad/iPhone client open for the entire process. You can queue up many programs, let them transcode overnight and then it's a few minutes a program to transfer them to the iPad/iPhone. You can even watch a program while the others transfer - or go take a shower.

No, you don't have to have the client open for the entire process, but you do have to have it open for downloading transcoded programs. This I find annoying - it's a multitasking operating system that can easily handle the Nomad app downloading in the background - that is how it should be done, imo.

But wouldn't it be great to have the app transcode and download the content in one step as opposed to two?

In theory maybe...but based on what happens in the process...it is unlikely and the "lift" from doing it that way seems nominal.

One key value to 2 distinct "phases" in the transcoding process is that once you've done the "preparing" step (which takes the most time of the 2 steps)...doing any download...or re-doing any download...is a pretty quick task. It also assures a level of "quality control".

As a point of reference - I just cleared out my recordings...and re-downloaded 10 programs (that had been previously "prepared") representing over 21+ hours of viewing time...the entire process took about an hour.

But wouldn't it be great to have the app transcode and download the content in one step as opposed to two?

No, I actually wish it was seperated even further. I wish we could set up things to transcode and download seperately. I want every recording I make ot be automatically transcoded and stored on my Nomad, but I don't want it automatically transferring anything to any of my devices. I want them just sitting there on the Nomad ready for me, so when I do want to transfer them I can choose which device I want it transferred onto and do it then before I go on my trip.

Currently there is no sinple way to do this. So my workaround has been to install the Nomad client on my desktop PC and leave it running all the time. I then have the Nomad app on my desktop set to automatically transcode and download every TV series I record, and I have to manually tell it to transcode every movie I record. This makes it so everything is transcoded and stored on my Nomad like I want it, but it also means I have all kinds of transcoded shows/movies saved on my desktop's hard drive that I don't really need. I never watch any of them on my desktop, if I want to watch something on there I use DirecTV2PC instead since then I get the HD picture instead of the low res transcoded version. But I just deal with GB of shows stored on there for now so I have the convenience of being able to easily transfer any of my recordings to any of my devices in a short amount of time whenever I want.

It's really nice being able to just pick up my iPad and start transferring 10 hours of shows that are already transcoded while I pack for my trip. It usually takes less than 1 hour to do so, so it's done by the time I'm ready to leave. If I didn't have it set up this way I would have had to start the process the day before so it could have enough time (probably close to 11 or 12 hours) to accomplish the same thing.

Sometimes when I reflect back on all the beer I drink I feel ashamed. Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the brewery and all of their hopes and dreams. If I didn’t drink this beer, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. Then I say to myself, "It is better that I drink this beer and let their dreams come true than be selfish and worry about my liver."
-by Jack Handy

While it does take a while to restart the PC Client, you could avoid the download by closing it after you make your selections for transcoding. That would avoid having to delete them from the PC.

It would be nice to have a "Send to Nomad" option on the Playlist and iPad playlist.

I have found that my Nomad doesn't seem to start the transcoding process unless I leave the Nomad app open on my desktop. So I just leave it open and running all the time. I have a 2TB hard drive that all the shows get stored on, and I have plenty of room on it right now so it isn't a huge deal. But, I am a bit concerned that all the reading/writing of these shows to the hard drive may cause it to fail earlier than it would otherwise.

Just seems to me that it wouldn't be all that difficult to allow 2 options in the app. One to auto transcode a series, and one to auto transcode and download. Or possibly make a settings page that you can access by typing in the Nomad's IP address into a web browser like you do for your router, etc. Maybe in there you could have settings to auto transcoding a series, or auto transcoding everything.

Sometimes when I reflect back on all the beer I drink I feel ashamed. Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the brewery and all of their hopes and dreams. If I didn’t drink this beer, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. Then I say to myself, "It is better that I drink this beer and let their dreams come true than be selfish and worry about my liver."
-by Jack Handy

I want them just sitting there on the Nomad ready for me, so when I do want to transfer them I can choose which device I want it transferred onto and do it then before I go on my trip.

....

I never watch any of them on my desktop, if I want to watch something on there I use DirecTV2PC instead since then I get the HD picture instead of the low res transcoded version.

....

It's really nice being able to just pick up my iPad and start transferring 10 hours of shows that are already transcoded while I pack for my trip. It usually takes less than 1 hour to do so, so it's done by the time I'm ready to leave.

From what I've seen of the current iP* Nomad app - the Nomad (or maybe it's the app) seems to be aware of which programs were requested for the iP* or Android* device.

In an all apple household (with no Bootcamp or VMWare Fusion or Parallels running Windoze) the "choose all shows to transcode and download what I want in the morning" option isn't available. While currently the Nomad seems to have a very small user base, and we all seem to have a laptop or home system with the PC application, as things stand now the user base will remain very small.

For someone who is working with just a mobile device of some type along with a computer that has the Nomad application on it, the preferred method (judging from this thread) is fine, but imagine the American nuclear family with 2.3 kids, everyone has their own device they want to get their favorite shows onto and it's time to get to the airport to go on vacation (or even just to school and work in the morning) I foresee a download traffic jam in the morning. Perhaps the Nomad apps (for whatever device or PC) should have an option to either "transcode only" or "transcode and download".

The DIRECTV2PC analogy isn't really applicable here, as the Nomad is for watching DVR recorded programs outside the house, while the D*2PC app is for watching DVR recorded programs inside the home network (unless you can do it via VPN, I've never tried).

On another topic: I've seen others here asking about expanding storage on the Nomad - my setup is with a LaCie Rikki 500GB external USB drive, flash drives and cards aren't the only option available.

Well, over the last week, I had the opportunity to really give nomad a test drive and definitely found some shortcomings...

When deleting an epsiode from the iPad, it then keeps you on the screen for that episode, but there are no options. You have to select Back to go back to your episode list at which point the deleted episode disappears.

When viewing the list of shows via the iPad that are on the DVR, there is no indication as to what episodes are already on the iPad. While I know that I can click on the iPad button and see, I would like to know what is there when I am going through the DVR list. For example, I have 7 episodes of one show on my DVR and wanted to have all on my iPad. As I couldn't remember exactly what episodes I had downloaded already, I needed to go through each episode to see if it had the "Download to iPad" button available of not.Actually, just noticed how you can tell the difference. If downloaded, the recorded date/time line of the episode is replaced with the Expiration Date of the nomad download. While that is nice, the recorded date/time line should still be shown.

The process of determining whether there is wifi connected or not needs to be tweaked. When I tried using nomad at one point, my iPad had connected to a free wifi network, but I had not gone into Safari to click on the TOS agreement button. Thus, while the iPad saw I had wifi, I really was not connected to anything. When opening up nomad, it just sat there at the Authenticating screen indefinitely. I needed to disable wifi and then nomad would work.

[*]When deleting an epsiode from the iPad, it then keeps you on the screen for that episode, but there are no options. You have to select Back to go back to your episode list at which point the delete episode disappears.